


Like a Forest Fire

by Aamalysstuff



Series: Soulmates through Time AU [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: A Lot of Plot, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Het and Slash, Multiple Orgasms, One Night Stands, Oral Sex, Orgasm Control, Porn With Plot, Time Travel, Vaginal Fingering, a lot of porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:08:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21349993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aamalysstuff/pseuds/Aamalysstuff
Summary: In which Francis (or Marianne) and Arthur (or Elizabeth)  keep meeting each other at various points in time, in different bodies and different circumstances – but the result is always the same. It feels like they've known each other forever.2015, London - Marianne meets Arthur for the first time.
Relationships: England/France (Hetalia)
Series: Soulmates through Time AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613674
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	Like a Forest Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This Author has been feeling very down on inspiration lately, so my cure for it has been to start another project. Yey. 
> 
> I've been toying with the idea of writing a "reincarnation fic"/"soulmate through time" fic for years. And I've always wanted to write a very smutty story, in which porn is a very important part of the action. Plus, the added bonus of writing characters I love as both their "standard male versions" and their Nyo versions.  
So here we go - Plot with Porn.

> * * *

> "Most people want things like a candle-flame, flickering, shifting. You, on the other hand, want like a forest fire."

\- Desire, as written by Neil Gaiman, in “The Sandman: Endless Nights”

* * *

A pair of Chanel pumps, in the classic beige and black, retail for about 800 Euros. They are an excellent option for a beautiful shoe that is both timeless and comfortable. They go with anything in your wardrobe, they make your legs look longer and your feet dainty.

At the very start of her career, when she first moved to Paris and still relayed on her parents to send her money so she could pay her rent, Marianne saved her money to be able to buy herself a pair of Chanel pumps. That year, she starred in a small production of Georges Bizet’s _Carmen_ and after singing _Habanera_ in front of an audience that had paid to listen to her warble _L'amour est un oiseau rebelle_, she had felt so alight with an intense passion for life – she had been so enamored with all the possibilities that were laid out in front of her…

All her noble ideas of moderation and practical savings went out the window. She got her money from her performance and took it directly to a Chanel boutique. She was still much, much too poor to even reasonably consider stepping inside, but reason had been thrown right into the trash and she walked out with her beloved pumps.

It left a dent in her budget. She took her new pumps back to her shoebox apartment, where clothes were strewn everywhere and air smelled like a combination of cigarette smoke and Jean Patou perfume, took them out of their box and put them on just so she could feel like she was the chic, elegant soprano she had always wanted to be.

Never mind that she had to eat only apples and croissants for a week afterwards. Never mind that her mother chastised her for months afterwards. Never mind that all her other clothes had been bought second-hand, all the other shoes cheap. It didn’t matter. She had her Chanel pumps, and in all the years that came after that, it was that memory of stuck – the feeling of pure joy and potential unfolding in front her feet, and her being equipped to walk that road in style.

Other purchases came, other fancy shoes and hand bags, and cashmere coats and silk dresses. She sang Habanera again in a bigger and bigger productions. She was Carmen and Isolde and Turandot. The possibilities she dreamt for herself all came true and the memory, that one memory of trying on her new shoes, it came back to her again and again.

It came back to her now as well – along a pain in her chest and an intense and completely justifiable hate towards the English.

Maybe she was being unfair – it’s not like she hated _absolutely everything_ about the English _all_ the time. Sometimes she even liked certain elements. But she hated a lot of things about the English – their _Tube etiquette, _their accents, the way they named their stations (_it had to be Waterloo, right?), _but most importantly – she hated their weather and the puddle she had just stepped in.

A Burberry trench coat was nice, but then again, Alexander McQueen created _bumster_ pants and those had been some sort of crime against humanity. Another crime had been committed when some rude Englishman walked passed her in a hurry and without paying attention to where he was going – subsequently, she took one step sideways directly into a puddle.

800 euros. Croissants and apples for a week.

Now, one might be tempted to say that a smart, reasonable person should have known better. The average weather in London tends to be wet and grey. This wasn’t news to anyone – if you lived your whole life in Ohio and never crossed the pond, but had a reasonably good internet connection, you probably already knew that London had crappy weather.

_What kind of shoes should you bring when going on a weeklong work trip to London? _If you asked Google, the answer would be – sensible boots. Go for a dark color. Not beige. For the love of god, not suede shoes.

_Don’t bring beige Chanel pumps to walk around London. _

But Marianne was not the kind of person to listen to the voice of reason, and she wouldn’t be caught dead walking around in what most people considered _sensible boots._

However, look at the situation like this – it was eight in the evening. Marianne’s day started at seven and it got progressively worse ever since. It was still four more hours until tomorrow, so she still had to endure this and the shoes – her beloved shoes….

It was the last straw.

It was her self-righteous anger at the unfairness of the world that made her square her shoulder and start walking in a brisk pace towards the man that had elbowed her. She could still see him in the crowd, a gentleman with a dark hat and that was talking on the phone. She was going to run after him, give him a piece of her mind and demand that he apologized to her. How rude.

Marianne was, obviously, completely ignoring the fact that people in Paris were just as hurried, they were even ruder and it’s not like she would have never walked off after someone for bumping into her. But that man – that man with his stupid hat….damn him.

She was so focused on following him with her gaze through the crowd, that she was taken completely by surprised by the other person walking in from the opposite direction. As fate would have it, both of them were walking intently towards a designated target and both of them collided directly with each other.

Marianna promptly forgot about her shoes the second she felt a lukewarm liquid spilling across the front of her dress.

“Bloody hell, woman, watch where you’re going!”

But Marianne could pay attention to him, she just looked at herself and realized that there was a huge brown stain spreading on her cream-colored silk dress.

This particular Englishman probably had the same slow realization as Marianne did, but while he was dealing with the minor inconvenience of ‘_no more tea_’, Marianne felt like her stomach was a pressure cooker and her throat was a blowing steam –

_“You stupid asshole! What did you do?_ _This damn country, what in the world am I even doing here?_” She screamed into his confused face

“I have no idea what you’re screaming about.”

Of course, because people are angry, they tend to start screaming in the language that is most accessible to them. For Marianne, it was French first, Italian next and then German. English wasn’t that much of a priority, but she could make do with it in this case.

“My dress! You ruined it!” she motioned to the cream-colored fabric that was clinging to her front. The man looked disinterestedly downwards to take in her appearance, and then his green eyes focused back on her face. He looked didn’t say anything to her – she didn’t want to hear what he had to say anyways – but it angered her even more. “Do you have nothing to say? I would appreciate some apologies, you know, but it seems there’s no amount of manners anywhere in this city!”

She kept her shoulders straight and her chin up, looked him straight in the eye and really, really hoped he was going to start screaming back at her. Really – she could see it in the tense lines around his mouth and the crease between his eyebrows, he looked just as ready to start a yelling at her in the street have a nice, satisfying scene to appease her inner demons.

She was _so_ ready for it.

Instead, the man started at her face for longer than she was comfortable with and then he just sighed like he was much older. His shoulders sagged, his chest rose and fell with a deep breath and he look at her with something that looked too much like understanding and sympathy.

“I’m sorry for your dress.” He said plainly and mechanically. Then, Marianne could see that his face softened like he had decided to pursue a more diplomatic approach in dealing with her, “Are you alright?”

“_What_?”

She was completely taken aback by the question, but really, what a condescending question. While the sympathetic tone surprised her, she was just about ready to start snapping at him again. It might have been evident on her face, because he scrunched up his nose and raised one hand to pacify her.

“Look, I have no idea what’s going on with you or what your problems are, but I am not going to pick a fight with a woman that’s been crying, even if she is acting like a bloody cow. So – are you alright?”

Oh, good God, he was such a snotty bastard, wasn’t he? The tone of his voice, his horrifying eyebrows, his damn posture, the way he still held that empty carton cup in his hand. Marianne wanted to slap that arrogance of his face on second, and then the next she felt something inside of her collapsing too.

The anger and frustration and the grief, they were burning bright and hot one second and then in the other, they went out and she wasn’t feeling self-righteous anymore, she was feeling stupid. The front of her dress was sticking to her wetly. Her head was pounding, and her eyes stung. She raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, closed her eyelids tight to she could avoid looking at this man in front of her.

Damn him.

A small spark of fury was still there, hidden under to onslaught of tiredness – though truthfully, this particular batch of bitterness was directed inwards. So much for being elegant. There was nothing elegant in yelling at someone with mascara and eyeliners smudged down your face, because you’ve spent the better part of the afternoon sobbing.

The ridiculousness of the situation she was in hit Marianne like the punch-line of an especially good joke and she started laughing.

“_Mon Dieu, _I did act like a cow, didn’t I?” She said, while stealing a glance at him. He looked terribly uncomfortable at her sudden admission and Marianne smiled at him, trying to put on her the most charming disposition she could muster with her ruined make-up and stained dress.

“It’s alright,” he told her with a tight voice. A moment passed between then and he looked as if he didn’t know how to react – that, at least, made her feel a little bit better. He was, after all, a man, and most men were instinctively disarmed in front of Marianne when she looked at them a certain way. He dug into the pocket of his green coat and pulled out a packet of tissues, which he offered to her. “I really am sorry for spilling my tea on your dress.”

Marianne took the offered tissues and tried as best as she could to wipe away at her face – she was sure it wasn’t going to do her any good, any tear marks she had across her face were already dried down. She had a little mirror in her purse, but she was dreading to pull it out and look at herself.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

And with that, she expected him to walk past her and continue on her way. But he didn’t.

“Right. Erm…”

He just stood there awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, clutching that empty take-away cup and staring at her with green eyes. And Marianne started back – now that the cloud of emotions had passed, she left feeling empty and a little bit bashful, like she was a school girl in front of her teacher, not at all like the confident woman she usually fancied herself to be.

There were people still passing them by on the sidewalk, and cars were honking in traffic and the humidity in the air probably turned her usually luscious golden curls into a frizzy mess. She ran a hand through her hair and really, the man wasn’t going anywhere. If he really had been a hurry to get somewhere, he wouldn’t have stuck around.

And he really did have astonishingly green eye. A bit plain looking in general, but the green eyes balanced out the stubborn looking eyebrows and the mop of course-looking blond hair.

And Marianne – she was in a city she didn’t like much, her evening was already shit.

And she didn’t like to admit it, but she was lonely here, far from her cozy apartment and far from her friends and far from any of the casual lovers she had in Paris.

“Would let me buy you another drink, as an apology?” She offered sweetly, letting her accent drip thicker of her tongue.

“I…I don’t….I mean…” It made her smile all the more when she realized her was fumbling for something to say. Most likely not used to random women making that sort of offer, especially not in such strange circumstances. But Marianne always found it cute when men got tongue tied around her, and he did have this general aura of a stuffy professor. He cleared his throat and finally settled on saying, “It might not be the right time for tea.”

“Thank god. I hate tea.” That made him snort.

“Of course you do,” He rolled his eyes when he said that, but he sounded more than a little amused. He looked at her up and down, with a purposeful glint in his eyes that made him look a bit mischievous. Well, maybe not completely awkward and stuffy professor then, that sort of look definitely had potential. She could work with that. He was evaluating her and her offer – really though, Marianne was quite confident that even in the sorry state she was in now, he wouldn’t find her lacking.

If vanity was a sin, Marianne never stood a chance in front of it.

“What would you like to drink, then?” He asked her – he sounded a little bit mean and a little bit condescending, but she liked playing that sort of game.

“With the sort of day I’ve had?” it was her turn to snort, “Wine, _mon cheri_, I want wine.”

“Wine. How appropriate.” The corner of his mouth quirked. He had dimples. “Usually I get to know someone’s name before I get to drink with them.”

“Ah, how rude of me.” She said, with mock outrage and wide eyes. She held out her perfectly manicured hand, “I’m Marianne.”

“I’m Arthur. It’s nice to meet you, Marianne.”

Their fingers touched and he held her hand a second too long for it to be especially proper. Then again, she felt that little shiver on her spine when they touched, the kind of _je ne sais quoi_ her instincts associated with the good kind of chemistry.

Maybe it was because all her feelings were still close to the surface of her skin, but she felt it all the way to the pub he took her too.

Many of the lovers she had over time accused her of being cold and distant – it couldn’t be further from the truth. Marianne wasn’t cold, she wasn’t distant. Passion was not an area she was lacking in – patience was and that spark of anticipation was always was something she craved, but with most of the men in her life, it was especially hard to make it last for longer than a few days. Luckily for _Monsieur_ Arthur the stuffy professor, she didn’t need it to last longer than that.

* * *

“My ex-husband is getting remarried.” It tumbled off her tongue when she was halfway through her second glass of wine.

“Oh.”

It was all Arthur could say, before reaching for the bottle of wine between them and refilling her glass.

“I’m…sorry to hear that?” He added, with his ridiculous eyebrows raised, probably trying to gauge her reaction so he could tailor a response. Really, those things were very ugly on their own, but after spending about an hour with him chit chatting about this and that and drinking some surprisingly decent Pinot Gris, she found it endearing how expressive his face was with them.

Arthur looked like the sort of person that was shit at poker.

His face got pink when she looked at him too much and the lines of it tightened and relaxed too quickly. Wore his emotions too close to the surface, but he was old enough to have built some walls against it.

“Don’t be. I’m happy for him. He does deserve to be happy. He even invited me to the wedding.”

“How nice of him.” Arthur commented, and it made Marianne grin to hear a little bit of animosity there. Few men liked to hear that a woman their sharing wine with keeps in touch with her ex-husband. “Is she pretty?” He asked snidely, grabbing his own glass and taking a sip of wine, his gaze never leaving her.

“How nasty of you, to ask a divorced woman if her ex-husband is marrying someone prettier.” She teased him, not wanting to admit that the question stung. “Not very gentlemanly of you, is it?”

“You yelled profanities in French to me in the middle of the street. You’re not much of a lady either.” He fired back at her. Arthur was so prickly, like a little hedgehog that had to be teased out of his hiding place. But Marianne was feeling surprisingly content with the situation.

“_Touché_.”

The pub they were in was dark and cozy. It had low lights and a jumble of ornaments hanging from the ceiling, giving off a feeling of being cramped in the best way possible. Coupled with the fact that she was drinking good wine and in good company, it made her tongue looser than she would normally be.

She had washed her face in the ladies room right after they walked in, dabbed a coat of lipstick across her mouth and fluffed up her hair. There was nothing she could do about the dress, but given the circumstances, it was the best she was going to look for him. Regardless, Arthur didn’t seem like the kind of man that would care much about whether or not her dress was immaculate.

“She is quite pretty. A bit plain looking, but she’s younger than him and very doe-eyed. _Italian_.”

“Italian – how lovely.” Snarky bastard that he was, he made it sound like it was a bad thing. But Marianne wasn’t much better in that department – she was a soprano, she spoke Italian fluently, she performed in Italy often and she still considered that aspects of Italian culture were too much for her.

“They met about a year ago and she’s pregnant. They’re doing the wedding before the child is born.”

“Oh, well. People move on.” He said with a shrug and took a sip of wine. “Did you leave him?” Arthur asked, with all the finesse of a bull in a China shop. Marianne pondered whether to answer him directly or dance around the subject. However, before her brain made the decision, her mouth decided that honesty was the best policy.

“He left me.”

That seemed to surprise Arthur and there was indecision on his about how much he should poke at the subject. Evidentially, his curiosity got the better of him.

“Why?”

Marianne waited for him to take a mouthful of wine before answering.

“I slept with his brother.” It had the desired effect, the shock of her statement made him choke on his wine. Arthur coughed painfully through the burn of it.

“Bloody hell, woman, _why_ would you do that?”

His face was red and his eyes water from the wine, so he looked at her with this shiny, wet gaze. Coupled with the sincere bafflement in his voice, the effect it had on her was…surprising.

She met this man a little more than an hour ago – he didn’t know her, and she didn’t know him. Most likely, they would finish this bottle of wine, maybe they would even spend the night together and after that, never see each other ever again. Either of them could get up and leave whenever they wanted to do, no harm done.

Marianne would like to say she was the kind of person that didn’t care much about what people gossiped about her behind her back – but she hated it when people thought poorly of her. She got up in the morning and spent an hour and a half on her routine – get up, brush your teeth, do your hair, do your make up. Put on perfume, get dressed. She emerged out of her apartment like a butterfly out of a cocoon made of clutter and too many clothes, and she looked flawless and effortless each time. There was a lot of practice that went into looking like you didn’t care about what people thought of you, when in reality you cared all too much.

It had been a very long time since someone caught her off-guard as badly as Arthur had. Most her carefully constructed barriers of poise and fashion and charm and elegance had been blow to hell by the time he spilled his tea all over her dress.

So really – there was no harm in answering honestly. She felt surprising brave.

“Because he forgave all the other ones.”

And just like that, with that one line, a blanket of heavy silence descended over them both. The pub was still full of people, there was still music in the background, but between the two of them the air was thick with the confession.

Because he forgave all the other ones – it was a dreadful thing to say, but Marianne wasn’t what anyone would describe as a good woman.

Ludwig was a good man, though. An excellent man, and had loved her. He had been willing to forgive her anything, pluck the moon out of the sky if she wished for it and lay it at her feet.

Ludwig never got angry. Ludwig never raised his voice at her, Ludwig never disrespected her, Ludwig never pushed her.

And Marianne tried, she really tried to love him and be faithful to him.

Ludwig wanted children and Marianne had maybe wanted them too. The second Ludwig had asked her to marry her, she had kissed her birth control goodbye and threw it in the trash, never to be seen again.

A year passed and they got married. Another year passed and then another, and her period kept coming with the regularity of a Swiss watch. They both got more and more frustrated, it was harder to be married and more and more evident that they had made a mistake. Both of them were too proud to leave, didn’t want to be the one to call it quits. He had tried to be patient with her.

But Marianne yelled and shouted and cried and raged. Marianne threw things when she was angry and screamed in his face, all in the vain hope that it might get him to react somehow.

Marianne didn’t want him to forgive her – she wanted him to pin her to the wall and fuck her. She wanted him to be mean and nasty and grab her and leave bruises and leave her sore in the morning. She wanted him to be unkind sometimes and possessive and she wanted to feel like he_…_

What Marianne wanted, she hadn’t found yet.

Marianne wanted a man that loved her beyond rational thought and beyond the limits of propriety. She wanted someone that would ruin her for all other lovers and leave her with a scar on her heart shaped like him. 

“You’re a terrible sort of woman, aren’t you? Why didn’t you leave him if you didn’t love him?”

“But I did love him. I simply…”

“Didn’t love him enough? Didn’t love him the right way? What the hell was it?” Arthur took a gulp of wine and set the glass on the table more forcefully than was it was necessary. “You’re not supposed to do that do people you love.” 

Marianne didn’t answer him then, she tried to latch onto her thoughts and form a coherent response out of them.

She hadn’t liked the sort of person she had been during her failed marriage to Ludwig. He had been so out of his depth with her that most times she was left feeling like she was stuck in a gilded cage, kept there by the expectations of things unfulfilled.

Everyone loved Ludwig, he was such a good man, such a good choice, and she had lied to herself that maybe, given enough time, she would be able to give up her ill-conceived notions about what love, romance and most importantly, about what passion looked like and _see him_.

It would have been different if they would have been able to have children. Ludwig would have been an excellent father and Marianne might have been able to love him for that. Maybe that would have made her happy, maybe they would have both been happy. Maybe then she wouldn’t have looked twice at anyone else – but it hadn’t happened.

There had been moments when she was convinced it was doable - and there were things she had wanted to think it were possible with him. 

And now Ludwig had his pretty little Italian girl that was pregnant, and she was going to love him properly and they would have a big family together.

She took her wine glass and downed it in big gulps, the alcohol filling her stomach and leaving her tipsy.

And it was also very clear now, the thing that Marianne had always known deep inside – Ludwig wasn’t the one unable to father children. She was the one who couldn’t get pregnant.

“He wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t what he wanted either.” She said with finality, reaching for the wine bottle. Arthur grabbed it before she had the chance to, held it right out of her reach and looked her dead in the eye. She frowned at him, but he wasn’t intimidated by it.

“Why were you crying? You slept with his brother, cheated multiple times, why were you crying? If he wasn’t what you wanted.”

“Because he found it.” She answered, with a painfully sharp edge in her voice. “He found what he wanted, and I didn’t, and I’m happy for him, but I’m a terrible woman and I’m bitter and jealous. There. Are you happy?”

Arthur looked at her seriously, studying her face and she left him gaze on her skin so intensely she wanted to flinch from it. He seemed angry, the sort of anger that made Marianne want to poke at it and push. There was a knot of emotions inside him, it had to be there, and she wanted to unravel it and make it spill from mouth and she wanted to taste it and see if she liked the flavor of it.

Maybe she did. Maybe it matched hers.

There was something at the back of her head, a needling feeling and a tingle in her spine that spoke of familiarity. Like she’d been here before, like he’d been here before, like this strange Englishman she knew nothing about knew more about her than any other men she’d met, she like knew him better than this.

It was like muscle memory, like getting on a bicycle after years and years and still knowing how to keep your balance.

The air between them was thick and suddenly it was very hard to breathe. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest and she felt like she reached out and grabbed at nothing she’d catch…glimpses.

Déjà vu, that’s what they called it, but it was more than that, because there was this feeling in her muscles and joints and a vibration in her bones that told her she knew how she should deal with him, that she just needed to reach out to him and grab him by the hair and pull him into her. It was so strange and so intense that it made her breath stumble in her throat.

The only point of balance she found in this weird sea of confusion was Arthur, and his green eyes and the look on his face that was just as unsettled as she was. He closed his eyes, breaking off the connection and taking a deep breath. She saw him schooling his emotions into place, getting a hold of himself, and when he found his composure he filled up their glasses again.

_You feel it too, right?_ She wanted to ask him, but it was crazy, right? It was crazy, but it was right there, right between them, this feeling of a thousand fights and a thousand kisses that never happened.

He didn’t even set the bottle down on the table and she was already drinking that damn wine like it was water. 

“What do you want?” He asked, with his voice raw and tense with things unsaid. The question, though, it made her laugh. It was such a stupid question.

She put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her own palm. Marianne leaned forward, locks of hair tumbling forward and shadowing her face. She answered him with a voice soft and amused, like they were conspirators and she was sharing a big secret with him.

“Something that I can’t get, so there’s no point in talking about it.”

Arthur huffed a breath and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up more than it already was. He took a deep gulp of wine and leaned in over the table to get close to her and play by the new game rules with her.

This close, she could smell the alcohol on his breath and see all the freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose.

“Humor me” he challenged, and then she saw his hand moving out of the corner of her eyes. He reached out to touch her, but stopped inches away from her face, like she was a spooked animal that he needed permission to touch. Marianne wanted to indulge him, though, she wanted him to touch her, so she pushed her head into his open palm.

She closed her eyes when she felt him run his fingers through her hair. A small shiver of delight ran across her spine as he tugged at a curl of hair, spinning it around his finger and releasing it. With anyone else, the intimacy of it would have been something she found off putting. But now? In this moment, with this man?

Marianne turned her gaze towards him and fluttered her eyelashes. Her blood felt warm and she wanted to share something with him that was less likely to make her heart ache.

“I wanted to be a knight.”

“A knight.” Arthur’s deadpan tone clearly showed he wasn’t completely satisfied with her answer, but it was all she was willing to offer at the moment. She nodded, face serious for a second before breaking off into a huge grin.

“A knight, yes. With a shining armor and a big sword.”

“Riding into battle on a white stead, I assume.” He added. Arthur gave a sharp tug to her hair and then let go, settled back fully into his chair and putting the appropriate amount of distance between them again. He didn’t seem disappointed anymore, though, but regarded her with a raised eyebrow and a quirked mouth. 

“_Bien sur,_ I used to think chivalry was so _chic._” There was a laugh, and she picked up her wine, leaned back into her chair until she felt the wood touching her back. “I still do.”

“Were you Joan of Arc in this scenario?”

“Ah, no, I had no fantasies of being a warrior maiden. I was a noble knight that wooed the ladies of the court with my charm and manly virtue. I was the bravest of the bunch and…”

“Died at the battle of Agincourt, because being an archer is clearly a better option?”

“So mean. Would you have shot me through my chest?” she asked with a sniff, putting her palm over her breast. Arthur’s gaze followed her movement, attention more likely focused on the curves there, rather than the potentially fatal damage of an arrow piercing her chest.

“Most likely. I like to think I’d be a proficient archer if I set my mind to learning such a skill. Not much use for archery in London today, though. Not much use for knights either.”

He shrugged his shoulder and leaned forward again, setting his elbows on the table and gazing out the window. Marianne took a few seconds to study his profile – there was something handsome there, in the stubborn sharpness of his features. It might have been the soft lighting that made her judge him more kindly, but she wanted to reach out run a finger over the corner of his mouth.

A bit like she was a tourist in Arthur, like he was something she had seen in pictures hundreds of times and she was finally seeing it in real life. An aching familiarity and the excitement of new discoveries at the same time.

“I used to dream about it. Not as a flight of fancy – I had dreams about it. All the time.”

The seriousness in her voice made him turn to her sharply.

“What did you say?” He had heard her, Marianne knew he had heard her. It made her swallow drily.

This was a slippery territory for her to be on – on one hand, she wanted to tell him. Maybe because she felt, for the first time in her life, that she wanted to share this part of herself with someone that couldn’t accuse her of being crazy. On the other hand, she didn’t want him to think she was crazy.

Because it was crazy.

She thought it was crazy. Her mother thought it was crazy. Ludwig had asked her to get help and seek medical attention for it.

She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and avoided looking at him. Just as he had before, Marianne concentrated her gaze on the lights outside, on the people passing on the other side of the window.

“When I was a child, I started having these nightmares. All the time, every night when I went to bed. I dreamt I was a knight or I dreamt I was a solider or a revolutionary. I was always a man, and I was always…” She ran her tongue over her dry lips, “I was always dying.”

It seemed so silly to talk about it candidly, but it had been and still was a part of her life. All the nightmares, all the times she woke up screaming with a phantom pain in her chest because she was being cut down with a sword, or with a bullet, or an arrow. She woke up unable to breathe and feeling like she was suffocating, because mustard gas was filling her lungs. She woke up running to the bathroom to take a cold shower because she thought her body was on fire.

Marianne’s nightly terror never abated, they were just as much a part of her as her fingers or toes or her blond hair.

“Sometimes I don’t wake up from it, and there’s only darkness for a long time until…I hear this voice.” She laughed at the ridiculousness of it all, but it was true, it was so true. “I don’t hear voices. Not when I’m awake.”

“But…?”

“But there’s this voice in my dreams sometimes. When it’s all dark and I’m alone, there’s this voice that’s always calling out to me and he’s telling me that I’m…”

She stopped herself from what she was about to say. Saying it aloud would bring it into the reality of the waking world.

“Tell me. What is he saying to you? Tell me.” The breathless edge in his voice made her turn back to him. Arthur was looking at her as if something very important was balanced on the edge of her tongue. It was the reverence that bordered on obscenity and it made Marianne feel like she owed him an answer. She didn’t think about why it might be important for him to know, but she just knew that if he looked at her like that, Marianne couldn’t bear to disappoint him.

“That I’m not allowed to die. That I have to come back, because I’m his and he’s mine and I’m not allowed to die. And he’s always so angry and hurt, and I…”

_Wake up in tears because I can’t comfort him. _

Marianne had no idea what was wrong with her brain for it to have conjured up such an elaborate fantasy. All she knew was that the pain and sadness and heartbreak of those dreams stuck to her like oil for days afterwards. Her heart hurt for him so much and in her dreams she reached out into the nothingness and the darkness, only for her arms to flail uselessly.

“I don’t know where it started or why.” She offered as an explanation or justification or just to have it said, “I’ve never seen or heard anyone in such intense grief and anger. Certainly didn’t have experience with heartbreak redirected at me.” Between then and now, Marianne had acquired a lot of experience in breaking men’s hearts, “But sometimes I used to think – someone like that would burn down the world for me.”

Marianne had considered many time what that sort of things said about her – her idea of romance was something that no one could ever consider healthy or right, and it was purely a product of her own mind. The reckless insanity of it – Marianne wanted someone that would love her beyond rationality and sanity, with all the abandonment and hunger of a starving dog and borderline blasphemy and nothing else would satisfy her.

Maybe it was all those opera heroes and heroines that she had to sing – Orpheus walking through hell for Eurydice, Isolde following Tristan into death. If it was unobtainable, she would die like Carmen, free and wild and jumping from lover to love to find a little bit of excitement.

“That’s what you want – someone that would burn down the world for you? Someone on that would be willing to – what? Die for love?” Arthur snorted, his laugh unkind and with a tad of bitterness that usually came from disillusionment. “That’s a lot to ask of a lover, Marianne.”

But his voice was soft when he said her name, with bottled up emotions that were just present enough for her to know that had heard her and understood. 

Marianne smiled at him sadly.

“Of course it is – I’m a selfish and terrible woman, I’ve already said that.”

Arthur looked at her with an obvious question on his lips, but he seemed to think better about asking it. Instead, he leaned across the table, buried his fingers in her hair again and grabbed a handful of it. It took her by surprise, but a sharp pulse of arousal heated up her spine at the same time. Arthur pulled her face towards him and Marianne went willingly, closing her eyes in preparation for a kiss that didn’t come.

Eyes closed a second, then another, no kiss, but she could feel Arthur’s breath of her lips and his hand, the one that wasn’t fisted in her hair, it caressed her cheek, the soft skin under her eye, grabbed her chin to tilt her head back.

“Open your eyes. Look at me.” There was no room for her to deny it his voice, it was all heady and low and it made her breath hitch. She opened her eyes to do as he requested and wished she hadn’t.

Instead of the sexual aggression she was expecting to find due to his behavior, Marianne found herself looking a man so conflicted, she though she could feel his turmoil sweeping through his pores. He was looking at her like he wanted to eat her and worship her at the same time.

The table was digging in her abdomen and people might have been looking at them, but Arthur’s hand in her hair was gently massaging her scalp, and he ran his finger over the corner of her mouth and God, Marianne was so very glad that she was seating down because she was sure her legs would have went sof.

“Kiss me.” She almost begged, feeling like she wanted to crawl inside his skin just to be closer.

“I don’t think I would stop, if I start.” The tension in his voice mirrored what she felt coiling in her stomach. Marianne wanted to dig her nails in the wood of the table for some kind of purchase.

Arthur let go of her and sat back heavily. She did the same, feeling ravaged on the inside. They sat across from each other, actively working very hard on not looking at each other, but stealing glances to see how the other was dealing with…this.

Blue eyes met green eyes briefly, avoided each other and then turned back, a conversation being had without any words being exchanged.

_Do you feel it, too? _

And the answer was,

_Yes, I do, I do, I do. _

* * *

Marianne and Arthur were sitting outside in the street. It was late Friday evening, and there were groups of drunk young people laughing and generally being extremely loud. The night was damn miserable, wet and cold, and she felt the chill acutely through the trench coat that she had wrapped around herself.

She had an unlit cigarette between her fingers and Arthur dug out a lighter from his pocket to lite it for her. Marianne took a drag of smoke and blew it out slowly, while Arthur lit his own cigarette next to her. He had confessed he wasn’t much of a smoker anymore, but some bad habit stick around, especially when alcohol gets involved.

“That thing is horrid and tacky.” Marianne said, pointing to the huge tower that looked like a damn space ship. She was also feeling charitable at the moment, given the fact that it was on the tip of her tongue to say that Canary Wharf looked a bit like a completely oversized suppository.

Arthur gave a bark of laughter at the statement.

“I work there. Used to work, more like it.” He blew smoke out from between his lips and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was frowning, sounded quite contrived when he added, “I quit.”

“Why?”

It took him a second before answering. Marianne wondered whether or not she should push for more information or let him take his time when he finally made up his mind.

“My father died.”

That made her snap her mouth shut with a click. She had no idea what to say to that – death wasn’t something she had experience with. Both her parents were still alive and well, and grandparents had been gone before she got the chance to meet them.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said, without really knowing what more to add.

Arthur just stood there and finished his cigarette. When he started talking again, he wasn’t looking at her, but starting at Canary Wharf in the distance. She wanted to know what was going through his head, what she could do or say that would add anything. In the end, she decided to keep quiet.

“It was really unexpected. Quite a shock. My father wasn’t sick – or rather, he didn’t tell anyone he was sick.” He lit another cigarette, “My mother had been sick – inoperable brain cancer kind of sick and it involved a lot of treatment, a lot of hospitals. By the time she died, we were all dreading it, but it wasn’t a shock.”

There was silence between them again and she wanted to reach out and grab his hand.

“They had a little bed and breakfast, about half a mile from the Port of Dover. Really beautiful. Cozy. They ran it together, and after my Mum died, my father still struggled with it. Kept asking me and my brothers if we didn’t want to move there to help him with it.”

“Would you have wanted that?”

Another laugh here, but it was pained and raw and _sad. _

“Bloody hell, woman, _no_. Do I look like the sort of bloke that knows anything about that hospitality business?” His accent was thicker than before, slipping between the cracks in his voice. “My mum had just died and I didn’t want to uproot my whole life to move from London to _Kent._ My brothers have things like wives and children, they weren’t keen on it either.”

She could hear the resentment there and realized that Arthur probably felt the same way she did – most likely, he had also believed that by this point in his life, he would have those things too.

“Are you moving there now?”

“No,” he answered, all too quickly, bristling up like a cat. Then, a heartbeat – a sigh escaped him, “Not permanently. But someone needs to sort it out – either I find someone to manage the place or we’ll have to sell it. One of my brothers has two toddlers, the other has a ridiculously pregnant wife that looks like she’s about to pop any second. Neither of them have the time or possibilities to deal with our parents’ house and business, so I’m the only option.”

Arthur ran a hand nervously through his hair, scratching at his scalp and huffing angrily, probably sorting out to the frustrations and grief in his own head. Marianne took a step closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder for support.

“I’m probably going to stay there for a while.” He admitted heavily, “I can’t hate it more than I hated my job here.” He left his head hang, probably tired of having to think about it. “I always wanted to learn how to cook, maybe I’ll do it in Kent.” Arthur said that with all the excitement of a puppy being dragged to the vet.

“Cooking is a good hobby,” Marianne told him with what she hoped was a comforting smile, “I find it relaxing.”

“I find it as relaxing as a root canal.” He turned his body towards her and they made eye contact. “You know what my father told me, after my mother died? He said he was _relieved_.” Arthur spit out that word like it was poison. “_Relieved_ because he didn’t have to wake up and wonder if she was still alive or not. _Relieved_ that he didn’t have to see her in pain anymore, that he didn’t have to go through the day wondering whether or not she’d die when he wasn’t there.”

Marianne put both her hands on his shoulders and leaned into him, hoping that her proximity might be soothing. Her trench-coat fell open now that she wasn’t keeping it wrap around herself, and a shiver of cold went through her body.

“I was so angry at him. My mum just died, and he was telling me…” Arthur shook his head. “I still haven’t forgiven him for that, and now I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do it.” She could hear the thickness of tears unshed in his voice.

Marianne embraced him fully then, pressed her body against him and tightened her arms around him. She felt him tremble and vibrate against her, his shaky breath against her cheek, his arms snaking around her middle, beneath her coat, cold palms pressed against the thin silk of her dress. They stayed like that until he found his composure again, and even then he didn’t let go of her. But neither did she.

The only movement was him pulling his head back from where it was pressed against her hair, taking her in from between heavy eyelashes. Arthur kept her close with one arm, tight against his chest, and she felt his open fingers bunch in the fabric of her dress. He smoothed her hair away from her face, gripped the nape of her neck and squeezed it gently.

He was studying her features again, trying to decipher motive, anticipation or reaction, maybe trying to determine a plan of action. _Where do we go from here, what are we supposed to do_? Arthur still gazed at her with a sort of breathless wonderment that made her feel dizzy, half-drunk and half-high.

The closeness between them made her forget the cold, the low burn of anticipation that was steadily building in her stomach made her knees weak and she closed her eyes. Her lips ached for a kiss, but she didn’t want to be the one to close the distance.

Marianne wanted Arthur to kiss her so badly, she wanted him to kiss her, she wanted him to need to kiss her. She wanted him to make love to her too, her skin wanted to be touched by him, she wanted to feel him moving inside of her.

Maybe then this strange spell that fell over both of them would break and pass and … - she didn’t know.

What she knew for sure was this – if he let her go here, she’s likely fall to her knees in the middle of the street. She’d have to crawl back to her hotel and she would think about him all night long. Then, Marianne would think about him tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that, she’d take him back to her to Paris and obsess continuously over the “what if?” and “how would it have been like?”.

Arthur pressed his forehead to hers and tenderly rubbed their noses together. Their breaths mixed and the hand that had been fisted in her dress relaxed, fingers opened against the small her back. Then that palm moved lower, skimming over her bum and downwards still, until the tip of one finger barely grazed the skin of her thigh right at the edge of the hemline. A shudder went through her at that, made her suck in air through her mouth.

That’s when Arthur kissed her, hungry and needy and yet she could still feel the restraint there, like he didn’t know how much was too much. So Marianne wanted to show him, prove that she wasn’t going to break if he pushed harder. Make it hard and bruising, leave her lips tingling and kiss swollen afterwards.

She nipped at his lower lip and then ran her tongue over it, opened her mouth against his and let him taste her. His fingers on her thigh migrated lower, fully grabbing at the flesh beneath her dress, making her want to push her leg against him. She gasped in surprise when she felt him touch the curve of her ass, and he swallowed the air in her lungs.

Arthur mouth pulled away from hers and she let out an involuntary whine, but thank god that he didn’t stop. He pressed kissed to the side of her mouth, her cheek, the shell of her ear.

“I want to fuck you,” he rasped, right before bending slightly to nuzzle against her neck. It made a wild burst of arousal flare up inside her. “I want to take you home with me” He bit at her pulse point, licked and kissed the area afterwards, “Can I take you home with me?”

Marianne knew full well that if he were to reach inside her panties, he’d find her all wet and sopping and welcoming.

God, she wasn’t a slut, but she wanted to fall down to her knees in front of him and let him use her mouth however he pleased. She wanted him push her down and thrust into her, she wanted to clench around his cock, she wanted to…

Arthur put an open palm on her cheek and forced her to meet his gaze. His pupil were all blown out and his lips were red and wet from kissing. The hand that had been under her dress was taken away from there. He placed it on her waist again, like a very proper gentleman, like he hadn’t been grabbing her ass in the middle of the street a second ago.

“Will you let me take you home with me?” He asked her seriously. There was something like nervousness on his face and it made him look younger, made a surge of fondness warm her chest.

She instinctively knew that if she said no, Arthur wouldn’t push it further than that. He’d step away from her and walk her, maybe make sure she made it back to her hotel safely. Then he’d kiss her goodbye and that would be it. It would still be a lovely memory she’d take back with her, without the guilt and the nasty feelings that always came from one-night stands with strangers.

One-night stands with strangers were things that happened when she was sad and lonely and couldn’t bear the thought of being alone. They meant that she woke up early and left before they woke up, not wanting to see them because the magic had passed, the moment had been consummated and most times she was left feeling lonelier and sadder than before.

But he didn’t feel like a stranger, he felt like an old lover that she had known by heart at some point and kissing him had all the passion and need of a reunion. Marianne couldn’t bear the thought of not having more than this – the hunger she felt for him was something that needed to be satiated.

She kissed him again, slower and more deliberate, lips soft and pliant against his. Marianne whispered her answer against his lips – and felt him sigh with relief.

“_Yes_,”

_Yes, take me home with you, _

She pushed her hands under his coat, her fingers finding the places between his buttons and sneaking in there so she could touch his warm skin. Her body begged to be close to him.

_Yes, take me away with you, take me, take me, take me. _

* * *

The taxi drive back to Arthur’s flat was one of the longest and most torturous experiences in recent memory. Both of them were sitting pressed up against the opposite car doors, putting as much distance between their bodies as possible. It was the only way in which they were going to keep this ride proper and not crawl over each other in the backseat.

The anticipation was making Marianne fidget, rubbing her thighs together, muscles clenching and relaxing. Arthur was stealing glances at her with the corner of his eye, she could tell. Usually, she’d turn towards him and throw a teasing smile, but if she caught him staring at her with the sort of heat he had, she would throw her caution out the window and reach out to kiss him again.

Finally, they reached their destination. Arthur paid for the ride, got out of the taxi and ran towards the other side of the car to open the door for her. Quite charming, she thought, as he held out his hand to help her out of the car. It was the sort of thing she still expected men to do for her and while it was a bit old fashioned, it added a good bit of points in his favor.

He didn’t let go of her hand, but pulled her along with him towards the stucco fronted apartment building in front of her them. Arthur led her inside, up the stairs, towards the second floor. Arthur reached into his pocket and for the keys, opened the door and motioned for her to go inside. Marianne hadn’t been sure what to expect from him, or where he was living – but she certainly didn’t expect _this_.

Arthur’s home was…lovely, really. She took off her shoes and trench coat and walked inside, sinking her bare toes in the small fluffy carpet that sat neatly over the hardwood floor. The furniture she could see was all dark, rich looking wood. The color pallet was all deep forest green and the couch seemed like it had the most comfortable pillows ever. It was cozy and warm looking, and spotlessly clean.

Marianne thought back to her own apartment, small and crammed as it was because of all the things she bought impulsively and stacked around. She had hangers of clothes in her living room, because there wasn’t enough space in her bedroom for her things. Marianne lived in absolute clutter, and she loved it like that, because it was _her clutter _and her organized chaos. Her house also had a very distinct smell to it – she cooked all the time and hanged her clothes to dry everywhere, she sprayed too much perfume on herself so the smell clung to the air. Arthur’s place didn’t smell like anything other than air freshener.

She stole a glace back at him over her shoulder, made her privately wonder if he genuinely lived here or just came back here to sleep.

Arthur came up behind her, moved her hair her one shoulder and nuzzled the side of her neck, inhaling the scent of her. She felt his lips ghost over her skin and the teasing motion made her shudder and close her eyes. Marianne melted into him, pressed her back to his chest, let her head fall on his shoulder, pushed her hips so she could rub against his groin. His arms came around her, one of them grabbing the skirt of her dress and pulling it up slightly so he could massage the soft flesh of her tight. His other hand went for the neckline of her dress, where the fabric split into a deep V.

Arthur caressed her clavicle, where the sharp bones were pushing against her sensitive skin. It made her sigh contentedly,

“I’ve been looking at this bit of skin here for the whole night.” He ran a finger over the middle dip in her collarbone, moved up to follow the line her throat and back again, “I’ve kept thinking about how it would taste.” His voice was throaty and teasing at the same time, and it made her want to turn around and crush their mouths together.

But…

She felt it in his hands while he was touching her – this tension and heat that was barely kept in check. His fingers on her thigh were drawing runes on her body, taunting her by moving across her the thin skin of her inner thigh, moving upwards towards her panties and then taking a turn lower. Arthur breath sent goose bumps over her skin.

His hand on her throat moved lower, skimmed over her breasts. That made her swallow, she felt him brush over her nipple and then completely ignoring it. Arthur wanted to seduce her, and Marianne was very willing to let herself get seduced by him, so she let him tease her even though both of them wanted it just as badly.

And right then, when she whined low and needy, and thought she had to prepare herself for some slow teasing, his fingers went sharply upward between her thighs and touched her through her panties. Marianne moaned, surprised by the intense burn of desire that went up from her cunt to her stomach. Arthur grabbed her throat then, tightened his fingers around the column of her outstretched neck, while the hand between her thighs continued to massage her.

“Open you dress for me, will you?”

This morning, when Marianne picked out the cream colored silk dress she was wearing, she didn’t think it would come so in handy for it to be fastened by buttons in the front. What a fool she was – this dress that had been ruined by him a several hours before seemed to be completely _perfect _now.

“Yes, _yes_,” and she had this wild impulse to say, yes, _sir_ . Her shaky hands started fumbling to unbutton the front of her dress. She worked her way down with the buttons, not all of them but just enough for him to be able to push her dress over her shoulders when he wanted to.

“Good girl,” he said, leaving kisses on her cheek. He was such a condescending bastard, wasn’t he? But she loved it, she loved it, and she pushed her hips back into his groin and felt his cock hard underneath the layers of clothing still between them.

Arthur let go of her completely then – the hand on her throat disappeared and disappointingly enough, he stopped his caresses between her legs. She let out a growl of frustration that turned into a whine and a whisper of “_Wait, no._” when he stepped away from her body completely.

Without having him supporting her weight, Marianne was felt unbalanced and stumbled a step backwards. It took about half a second to regain her wits, but the damage to her ego had been done and felt her cheeks heat up with embarrassment at falling for that. Arthur had stepped in front of her, but he made no motion to help her.

She glared at him while he was loosening up his tie, though it was probably not very efficient when she had her dress opened like that, a blush on her cheeks and her hair all mused up. 

“You’re terrible.” Marianne threw at him, with a voice that sounded whiny and spoiled to her own ears.

“You _want _terrible.” Arthur shot back, taking off his suit jacket and throwing it on the couch. The tie followed after that and he unbuttoned the cuffs of her shirt, rolling them up to his elbows while stepping in front of her.

Marianne straightened her shoulders and raised her chin up at him. He wasn’t taller than her, they were about the same heights, but she still felt like he was at an advantage here – she was the one with her dress wide open and moaning because of his fingers a second ago. Instead of feeling like she had to hide herself though, she was still madly aroused. The desire to fall on her knees in front of him to suck him off came back with terrifyingly powerful, especially since he was sitting there in front of her, trying to look nonchalant with his pants tenting and his cheeks red and his nostrils flaring with desire.

Arthur looked like he wanted to eat her, ravish her and devour her whole.

Marianne wanted to let him and that frightened her as much as it excited her.

She had met more handsome men – Ludwig himself had been handsome like a movie star. She had met sexier men, more charming lovers – none of them had this effect on her. She couldn’t even pinpoint what exactly was it, what sort of magnetism _Monsieur_ Arthur possessed that pulled her to him and left her wet and so damn willing.

Arthur hooked his fingers in the fabric of her dress and his gaze bore right into her as he pushed the garment over her shoulders. The silk fell and pooled around her ankles, and she was left there only in her white underwear. There was a foot of distance between them, but neither of them made any move to close it.

Arthur seemed to take his sweet time looking at her, studying her up and down like she was a museum piece. Marianne liked being ogled like that – it didn’t feel sleazy, it felt curious and hungry, and she was proud of her body, scars and birthmarks and all. Finally his gaze settled on her face again.

“Come here and kiss me.” He told her, all arrogant and haughty, like he was some sort of lord and she was supposed to listen to his every whim.

“_Non, je ne veux pas.” _Marianne replied, crossing her hand loosely over her naked breasts and turning her nose up at him.

No matter how much she wanted to crush her lips into his, Arthur had to learn that she wasn’t just going to give in every time he wanted her to.

“Fine, I’ll do it, then” He conceded to her with a smirk and walked toward her with determination. Arthur grabbed her hair and pulled her to him, kissed her forcefully. Her mouth instinctively fell open for his tongue to plunder and taste. It mollified her enough to melt into him again, but not before she helped him push her underwear off as well. Her panties fell just as easily as her dress had.

While their mouths were preoccupied with each other, Arthur started walking her backwards until the back of her knees hit the couch. He gave one last lick over her lips and pressed a quick kiss to them, before pushing her gently down unto the couch. She let herself fall down heavily, back against the cushions.

Arthur knelt in front of her and ran his palms over her thighs, upwards over her soft flat stomach, over her breasts. He paused to touch the ragged ends of the birthmark she had on the left side of her chest. There was a twin to that birthmark, in the same place on her back, as if she had been pierced by something that went out through the other side. It wasn’t anything that exciting, though, Marianne had been born with it. When asked about it, she joked it was the place Cupid shot her through.

Arthur regarded the mark thoughtfully, then leaned forward to leave a chaste kiss in the middle of it. He cupped her cheeks in his hands and Marianne looked at him, their eyes meeting and she thought he was searching for something on her face. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and that caught his attention, his green eyes fixating on that small movement.

He went to kiss her then, lips meeting, mouths open. It was a slow, languorous sort of a kiss that warmed her all over and made her soft. She sighed and he moved leave gentle marks on the side of her neck. Any and all previous feelings of tension and aggression had dissipated completely – Arthur was kissing her and running his hands over her body, and she left as if she had warm honey running through her veins. Her thighs were lazily rubbing against each other – arousal was like a sweet molten heat between her legs, but this was a low, steady pulse that felt…._lovely_, really, it felt lovely and _he_ was lovely, because he wanted to worship her just as much as he wanted to put her in her place.

Marianne was anything but a lazy lover – she liked putting in the effort for the men she was with, but she was very content to just let him do whatever he wanted. She trusted him to make her feel good, so she just held on to him and told herself she was going to enjoy it ride.

Then she felt him running his nails over her thighs, only for his hands to settle on her knees. Arthur stopped kissing her, panted over her lips. His gaze nervously moved from her lips to her own blue eyes and back again. He was such an odd mix of a man, Marianne concluded. So mercurial. One moment he was ordering her around and getting her angry at him, then he was kissing her like they were old lovers who knew each other by heart, and now he was all tension and anticipation and nervousness.

It made her smile, feeling hopelessly endeared by him. She grabbed him by the cheek, as he had done to her before, and pulled in for quick succession of kisses. “May I?” He asked, between pecks. Arthur’s hands tightened around her knees, but he didn’t make any move to pry her legs open. “Can I? Let me.”

Before she had the good sense to answer him, he bent down and took one of her poor, neglected nipples between his teeth, giving it a teasing bite. It felt like a lightning bolt striking her, she arched her back into him. She shouted her answer,

“Yes, yes, do whatever you want, _yes_”

Arthur grinned at her, _grinned_, all charm and teeth and arousal. It made him look cocky and arrogant and boyish and a just a little bit cruel, and it would have made butterflies tremble in her stomach if her stomach wasn’t already full of fire. Her legs opened for him and Arthur helped her raise her one of her legs to put her foot on the couch.

She was left exposed in front of his eyes, shuddering with anticipation. He bit her fleshy inner thigh, a quick bit of pain that made her keen. It was like that, quick bits of pain followed by wet kisses, from her knee to the apex of her thighs. By the time she felt his hot breath over her cunt, Marianne’s fingers were fisting into the fabric of his shirt. It was very hard to resist the urge to grab him by the hair and hurry him up, but she was good like that, wanted to be good for him.

When Arthur finally rewarded her by putting his mouth against the dark blonde curls between her legs, she trembled all over. Arthur licked her with broad, flat strokes, gentle and wet. Her hips moved on their own accord, wanting to feel more, get more, chased the sensation of his mouth. His hands pinned her down to the couch cushions, and she mewled in frustration. _Oh, please, please, please…_

She’d ask him for more, but then, he knew she wanted more, of course he knew, but he liked how Marianne responded to him and he liked tasting her, he had to know that right now he had his hand on her steering wheel and could lead her anyway he wanted to.

And she liked it, she loved it, surrendering her control over to him and trusting she would be okay in his hands. There were few lovers she had implicitly, instinctively trusted to take care of her and bring her the pleasure she was looking for – but there were also few people which she had trusted with her secrets, and Arthur hadn’t even asked for them, she had just offered them up.

Arthur ran his tongue over her slit, tasting the moisture there, and then up, finally, finally, _finally _lapping at her swollen clitoris. And it was _just _like she liked it, the _exact _amount of pressure and speed, like Monsieur Arthur had been born specifically knowing how to pleasure her, like he had no business doing anything else with his mouth other than using it to get her off.

Marianne had spent years of her life teaching various lovers how she liked it, and wasn’t it just hilariously ironic that she found him here, _pret-a-porter, _ready to steal away her sanity with his mouth?

Her body felt like it was balancing on tightrope, needing only a small nudge to tumble down into the precipice below. There was so much stimulation – he chanced between sucking on her clit and licking it, then he lapped at her opening and swerved his tongue there, _ah_, but when Arthur stopped doing that now, she felt empty inside and she wanted…

_Bless him_, Arthur knew exactly what she wanted before she had the chance to ask for it – he pushed two fingers inside of her pressed down on the wet walls of her inside, giving her that full feeling she was looking for.

His mouth was licking and sucking on her clit and driving her wild –

Fingers pushing and pressing inside of her and giving her something to grip to –

_God. God, yes, don’t stop, please, keep going, yes, just like that, just like that…_

There’s that sensation when you’re at the beach, with your toes in the wet sand and your back towards the sea, when the waves break against your back and take you by surprise. You fall face flat into the water, your lungs fill with water and you struggle to get back to the surface.

That was how Marianne felt, when the waves of orgasm hit her; she was taken aback at how intensely she felt it, how strongly her muscles tensed around his fingers, how her body sang with the release of it. She was soaring and swooning and Arthur didn’t stop. It felt as if he took her by the hand and steadied her, helping her it out and putting her back on her feet gently.

Marianne was panting, open mouthed, her body was all hot and relaxed. She opened her eyes and looked down at him, saw Arthur raising his head from where it had been nestled between her thighs before. He was proud of himself, mischievous and victorious, with his mouth all wet and his pupils fully blown.

His fingers were still inside her.

Arthur raised himself slightly, got his close to her face and kissed her, kissed her, kissed her, she tasted herself on his tongue, his fingers crooked inside of her, _oh_.

The high of her orgasm had passed, but the pleasure was still thrumming lazily in her veins, and he wasn’t even going to her the time for it to fully settle, was he?

Marianne felt slick and heavy, hyper aware of all the cells in her body, unable to do anything against it, not wanting to do anything against it. She started opening the buttons of his shirt one by one, gave up when she managed to get a big enough space of her to have access to his skin. She ran her hand over his chest, wanted to feel him naked over her.

He twisted and pressed his fingers inside her just _so_ that it made her throw her head back and moan, chest heaving and eyes rolling. It was a delightful sensation of too much and not enough, her hips were grinding against him. And then Arthur did it again, the same _twist-crook-press_ that made Marianne see stars.

_“Je te veux terriblement. Je veux que tu me baises”. _She told him, pleading her eyes and fluttering eyelashes and body, shameless and desperate. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair that she would have to beg for it – she never had to do it before.

And he…he..._bastard_. Arthur laughed against her mouth, but it wasn’t unkind. It was happy and unrestrained and incredulous, shook his head and did that thing again, and she couldn’t even get outraged because she was too busy mewling and keening.

“I don’t understand you, love. What do you want?”

_“Bien sur que tu comprends. Qu'est-ce que tu crois je veux?” _

He kissed her again, sloppy and wet,

“I want you, I want you, I want you to fuck me, now.” Her accent was thick and slurring even to her own ears, but she didn’t care, Arthur was terrible, _terrible_, awful infuriating man, she’d never wanted anyone to fuck her so badly, she wanted to feel him inside her and come around his cock and she wanted him to cum inside her and she wanted to feel him for a week afterwards, “_Please_.” She added. It never hurt to be polite.

Arthur stopped what he was doing and stared at her. _Stared, _eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, stared as if she had just handed him the key to the city and what? What was he staring at, why wasn’t he doing anything, why had he stopped moving his fingers _like that_, why wasn’t he pounding her into the mattress already?

“_Fuck,_” his voice was strained, Arthur’s green eyes were boring into her. He removed his fingers from her body and left her empty, clenching against nothing and making her whine.

_“Oui, exactement. Qu'as-tu pensé que nous faisions ici?” _But she didn’t have the heart to complain properly, she was too busy being transfixed by the way his tongue was chasing the taste of her moisture from his fingers.

“No, I mean…” He worried his lower lip and got up to his feet. “You’re…” He looked as if he wanted to say something, but caught himself before it came out. Arthur extended a hand out to her – _now_ he was being proper again. She took his hand and he helped pull her up from the couch, steadied her against him when she swayed and fell into him.

Marianne put her hand on his chest; felt Arthur’s heart beating wildly in his ribcage. She felt as though - if she pushed a little bit, she could reach inside and pull his heart out in her grasp. She closed her eyes and sighed, breathed him in, smelled the sweat and smelled Arthur underneath that.

“…Terrible?” She added for him, with her voice raspy and pliant. She wanted to tease him about it, make it fun and flirty, but it lacked bite. Arthur ran his fingers up her spine, over the nape of her neck, buried them in her golden curls. Left a trail of goose flesh and sensitive nerves-endings over the bumps and curves.

He pulled her head back, searching her face for something. She wanted to dip into his head and see whatever he saw, know what it was that made him shake his head and smile at her ruefully,

“Yes. _Terrible_. Absolutely terrible.” But he rolled his eyes at her and sounded so damn _fond_, helplessly so, and it shouldn’t make her chest swell like that, it shouldn’t, but it did.

Sometimes you make a bad decision and you find yourself afterwards reaping the consequences of it. When you look back at it and try to evaluate what went wrong, there’s always a moment when you can pinpoint as the turning. _If I stopped here, if I didn’t do that, if I surrendered or raised arms_. Picking the wrong pair of shoes to wear, drinking a glass too much. Picking the wrong man to marry, Napoleon at Waterloo or planets being misaligned. There always_ this one thing_.

Sometimes, if you were very aware of yourself and you paid really close attention to the dust settling around the two of you and movement of the Earth and the way he was looking at you, you could even feel it, the moment of no return when fate slotted into place and _clicked_ and you wrote your own damn heartbreak willingly. 

Marianne could feel herself tip toeing on the line of it, throwing rocks against the edge of a cliff to test how far the drop was and if it was worth the risk. She still felt relatively safe, but the danger was there.

Arthur led her to his bedroom and she laid down with confidence, pressing her shoulders into the mattress and pushing her breasts out, squirming against his sheets to give him a show of how good she looked in his bed.

“This will have to do, I supposed.” She said – trying her best to sound haughty and disappointed. It was complete bullshit, though. Arthur had one of those fancy mattresses and expensive cotton sheets that felt amazing against her bare skin. Stretching herself out properly, Marianne looked up at the ceiling, imagined falling asleep here and waking up in the morning – it was easier than she would have wanted to so she quickly scrapped that though and focused on more important and immediate things.

Marianne raised herself on her elbows and followed him with her eyes as he took off his shirt and undid his belt. He had stared at her naked; it was only fair for her to do the same. Arthur caught her staring, but it wasn’t like she was embarrassed by it. She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him,

“I don’t supposed you have anything to hide, do you? A three headed dragon tattoo on your ass, or anything as such, now is the time to confess.” She teased, biting her lip, running her gaze over his form. He had freckles and moles, and it was cute and she wanted to run her tongue over them.

Arthur rolled his eyes at her and responded to her teasing by pushing his trousers down and his underwear along. He looked at her with a glint of challenge in his gaze, it made her lose to edge of her smirk, made her throat dry and yeah, the arousal, the feeling in her stomach, it was still there. It flared again, made her sit up and crawl on hands and knees to the edge of the bed.

“_Viens ici, bebe,”_ He didn’t make snotty remarks, just swallowed and crossed the distance between them. Really, with how she was sitting now, she was at perfect level with his cock and yes, she wanted him to fuck her, he wanted to fuck her, but she now that the intense urgency of it had mellowed, she wanted to…

Marianne really, really wanted to show him that she wasn’t anything to a pillow princess who just let things happen _to_ her, that she had her own secret weapons and really, Arthur already made her come once, would have made her come twice on that damn couch. It was only fair that she returned the favor.

She swirled her tongue around the head, testing the flavor of him and looking up at him with a sweet smile – Arthur was breathing heavily and frowning, as if he was straining himself not to force his cock down her throat. Which wouldn’t be a bad outcome, as far as Marianne was concerned. She licked him from the base to the tip with the flat of her tongue, gently wrapped her lips around the head and gave it a short suck.

She wondered what his tolerance for teasing was – wanted to push at the limit of it and see what it took to make him lose control with her. Grab her by the hair and thrust down her throat, ravish her and make her choke and gag on his dick. The thought of that was so delicious –

“_Fuck_,” he voice was pained, _oh poor dear_, “Don’t tease, just….Ah-” He got cut off by his own shout.

Marianne took him in her mouth and down her throat completely and in one fluid motion – the sharp contrast between the teasing and the abrupt, wholehearted deep throat. She loved how he sounded, the shout, the sharp inhale of breath, the way he pushed and how wonderfully painful is was to have him gripping her hair. Marianne steadied herself on the bed with one hand and with the other she reached between her own legs to play with herself.

Just because she was pleasuring him, didn’t mean that she had to neglect herself. Plus, it was exciting for her to do this and Arthur, she discovered quickly, was _such _a responsive partner. His breath hitched, he moaned, he was _gloriously_ loud, his hips stuttered into her mouth and his hands couldn’t stop pulling at her, touching the hollows in her cheeks as she was sucking him in.

As a general rule – she loved to suck cock. There was something _so_ emotionally satisfying and exciting about pleasuring your partners. However, all the satisfaction came from reducing someone to a moaning, needy mess. She could make herself cum while sucking cock, but her partner needed to be willing to let himself be vulnerable in front of her, show her what he liked, be loud, _react _to her and not just sit there breathing through their noses like they were about to start sneezing.

Arthur was not like that.

Arthur was _fun _to play with.

She moaned and swallowed around him, making him feel the vibrations and the contractions. He instinctively pushed deeper into her mouth – while she was _maybe_ expecting it, the movement still took her by surprise. A bit too much and too deep, making her gag. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes of the sting, feeling tears run down her cheeks.

Marianne looked up at him just like that, with her lashes heavy and her eyes red and lips stretched around his cock and her hand touching herself.

“Shit, stop, _stop_,”

He pulled her away from his dick – very reluctantly, for both of them. Arthur kissed her before she had the opportunity to say anything. It was sloppy, badly coordinated kiss with too much spit and it made her moan into it. It felt dirty and obscene and it made moisture drip and spread between her labia.

“Didn’t you like me using my mouth on you, _bébé_ ?” She asked him with a pout, her a mock scowl, making her eyes wider, accent thicker, voice high and sweet. Of course it was a rhetorical question, but Marianne wanted Arthur to praise her, tell her how good she was. He groaned at the obvious ploy, and kissed her again, pushed her back against the bed. She fell back, lightheaded and horny and happy, legs open for him to crawl between them.

“I’m not going to deem that with an answer,” He said, kneeling on the bed and hooking his arms under Marianne’s knees. Arthur pulled her close, closer, she felt cock rest against folds of her. She was writhing, thighs around his middle, feeling slick and desperate. “I don’t want to cum in you mouth,” Arthur ran finger over her red, shiny lips, smeared the saliva that had run over them when she had sucked him off. Marianne took that finger in, bit at the flesh of it, begged him with her eyes. “I want to cum inside you.”

“_Yes, yes, yes, please. Yes, please, I want to, I want you, now_”

It all sounded the same to her hears, but it was most likely a jumbled mix of incomprehensible English and French. It had the desired effect though, her point was made, _yes please, baby I need you now_,

_There’s an ache inside me that needs you to sooth it_

_I don’t want anyone else right now, there’s no one else that would do, be mine, be mine, be mine and I’ll be yours right now, I’ll be yours tonight if you’ll be mine_

_Please fuck me already_

Arthur pushed inside her slowly and Marianne was sure it was just about the best thing she had ever felt – all of him sliding into her, thick and overly full and amazing. Her nerve endings were on fire, her thoughts were already fried, her hips were rolling against him, grinding and twitching.

Arthur put a hot, sweaty palm on her throat, forced her to throw her head back, put a little bit of strength into it. The pressure made her choke, made her breath hitch, made her hips stutter. Her heart was threatening to burst, there was a heat everywhere in her, furnace in her chest, Marianne felt like she was floating, floating….

He bent over her and pressed his forehead against hers, noses touching, mouths panting. Arthur’s body over her was heavy, the weight of him was _perfect, _anchored her to him and made sure she was still there, still safe. It made it hard to move, though, hard to chase her pleasure with him bearing down on her – but she trusted him.

“Look at me, Marianne, keep your eyes open for me” and he sounded just as wrecked as she was, just as chocked up and pained and ecstatic, of course he was. He felt it too, right, she already knew he did, this thing that brought them together, that made it so _good_.

If Arthur was the same, then he felt it too – the surrealness, the hyper sensitivity and sharpness. If his body was her point of contact, then she felt everything, each thrust building and swelling inside her, making her nerves hum and sing and dance, making sparks shoot up her spine – brain and lungs and heart melting like sugar.

But she was his too, his point of contact, wasn’t she? That’s why he was touching her and thrusting into her like this, with this wild reckless abandonment and need, making her arch into him and gasp and shout and plead.

Because Arthur wanted her just as badly as Marianne wanted him, and he wanted her like a forest fire, wanted to peel away all the other layers she had, fuck them off from around her heart, wanted her vulnerable and open and wanted to leave his fingertips all across her and steal her away.

Marianne could see it, just as clearer than anything else. The knot of emotions she had wondered about, the one that resided right underneath his skin, right behind his lips – that knot came unraveled in front of her and there was all anger and passion and want and she couldn’t stand to look at it, it was so familiar, but she didn’t close her eyes against the onslaught of emotions.

Marianne kissed him, and yes, she was right – the taste of him matched her.

Her nails dug into the flesh of his shoulders, scrapped across his back, pulled him closer to her, closer, she wanted to crawl inside him and make sure she stayed there, that he could never get rid of her. Marianne’s thighs pulled him closer, her legs locked around him, couldn’t get enough of him.

“You feel….” Arthur voice broke with a shuddering moan, “Perfect, you feel perfect, you’re so tight and hot. Bloody hell, you were made for my cock, weren’t you?”

_Yes, yes, yes_, she wanted to yell and scream and shout the kind of things she never did. And that was it, wasn’t it? The moment. Movement of the Earth stuttering, slotting into place and _click_, there it was, the tumble and a fall against the edge of the cliff. A deep-down dive with no end in sight.

Marianne came so strongly she thought her bones turned to liquid. It was a whole body experience, shaking and spasming, contracting and relaxing, inner walls tightening against Arthur’s dick and squeezing so hard. He kept thrusting, kept his rhythm like a champ while she was howling like a banshee and as she was coming down from the high of it, fucked into her slowly and deliberately.

It was just toeing the edge of overstimulation, right there between pleasure and pain, a fine balance that wasn’t easy to achieve, but _oh_, it was lovely, he deserved a standing ovation for it, she wanted to give him a castle and a knight him for it, if she had been Guinevere, there would have been no need for a Lancelot, because she couldn’t imagine him being better.

Marianne’s gaze was starting to lose the blurring edges, his shape was coming back into view, she focused on his green, _green_ eyes and red face, and he was biting his lips and frowning and looked positively pained. He hadn’t come yet. There was a new wave of fondness and endearment swelling in her chest, because Arthur had been polite enough to let her have her orgasm, fucked her through it and kept at it, let her have her fill. Very much a gentleman, which was so rare, and she wanted to reward him for it.

She smiled wolfishly at him and Arthur took note of the mischievousness on her face. The sound he made was halfway between a frustrated laugh and a painful groan,

“What do you want now, woman? What more do you want of me?”

It made her laugh too and she kissed him, happy and light and full of passion, because this was fun, she couldn’t remember the last time she had so much fun. Marianne put both hands on his chest pushed him off of her, used the strength of her thighs to throw him on his back and get herself on top. The motion was so fluid and in sync, his cock stayed fully sheathed in her.

“I want to be on top,” She proudly proclaimed, straightening her back and pushing out her breast so that he had an exciting view to look up to. “Let me take care of you. ”Marianne looked down at his face, saw him transfixed by the motion of her chest. Her hips rotated experimentally, checked for the right amount of pressure, the best angle. What was the best way in which she could achieve the right depth and be able to grind her clit against him too?

He moaned, likely feeling distressed and slightly annoyed by the playful, testing motions.

“You’re driving me crazy, you’re…”

“…Perfect?” She countered, with a grin on her face. Marianne’s hips were moving languorously and there was this lazy build of pleasure starting up again inside her. The fire hadn’t burned out, it simply lost some of its edge. It wouldn’t take very long to get it back to it’s previous scorch.

“_Terrible._”

“Tsk, is that any way to talk to the woman that’s riding your cock?” She squeezed her muscles around him and heard him choke, the breath completely leaving him.

It wasn’t like she needed more prompting than that. Marianne started moving earnestly then, grinding and rotating her hips in the way that worked best for her. The beautiful thing about her own anatomy was that she knew she could come again – few partners were ever able to match her in terms of endurance, never the first time they had sex, but at the moment, Marianne had high hopes for Arthur.

And she loved how he felt inside her, pressing up against her sensitive walls and filling her up, the best kind of stretch and maybe he really was right, maybe she really was made to for his cock, because he just felt so good. Skill you could teach, stamina can be trained – thickness and length that felt molded after her own body and preference was purely luck and winning the genetic lottery, as far as she was concerned.

Her breasts were bouncy heavily against her chest, and Arthur grabbed handfuls of her ass to get a feel of it, and if he was able to hold on a bit longer…

“Marianne, I’m…”

“_No. _Wait for me,” she said, voice breaking because of the fullness and heat and pressure and grind, “_Please_.”

Arthur gave a sharp hiss, back arching off the mattress, eyes slammed shut,

“Fuck, _fuck_, you’re insatiable,”

“Please, please, please, be good for me, _Arthur_,” her _r-s _were rolling ridiculously, her voice slurring, but, _ah, _any second now, just a bit more, a little more, _just please let me…_

“Fuck, you’re terrible, I hate you, terrible woman,”

And yes, yes, _yes_, there is was, that one orgasm she was chasing, that mind melting extasy, there it was, there it was. She wanted everyone in the building, everyone from London to Paris to hear her shout it out, rearrange the way they all thought about sex, because it really couldn’t get better than this, could it?

Arthur came inside her, and she never wanted to stop riding him, even if just for the look on his face, if he kept looking at her like that forever, like she hung the moon in the sky for him and he would give her a kingdom to keep having the privilege of coming inside her.

Marianne fell against his chest and Arthur’s arms went around her and held her so tight she thought he was going to break her spine, but it was only fair, if Arthur ruined Marianne for all other lovers, it was only fair that she ruined him too.

Endorphins and serotonins and dopamine, all of it was coursing through her, a glowy happiness that drowned everything else. She rolled off of him, pressed against the mattress. Both of them were breathing heavily, and she stole a glance at him and found him staring at her with sated wonder.

Marianne’s legs were useless and shaking so damn hard. Her brain didn’t get the chance to put itself back together, so she had to be forgiven for not having all her wits on her.

“That was…”

“…reasonably adequate, wasn’t it?”

She started at him. And started, and then she giggled. It started as a girlish little giggle and grew into a full belly laugh, loud and unladylike, and he was chuckling too, still looking like she tore his chest wide open and pulled him inside out.

“Yes, adequate, yes, _terribly so. _”

She was exhausted, and satisfied and well fucked, and she really couldn’t think straight, there was no filter between her mouth and her brain yet, everything was hazy and rosy and her heart was two sizes too big.

Laughs and chuckles subsided, and there they were, the two of them, blue eyes and green eyes searching into each other for god knows what. Arthur shuffled towards her just as she was reaching out too, lips meeting in a kiss. There wasn’t anything to be said that could be said and kissing was easier.

There was a literal and figurative meaning to most words. In this case, Marianne felt, both ways applied, her and Arthur were both literally and figuratively _fucked, _and it was terrible, but there was nothing to do about it, the damage had all been done.


End file.
